Fandango visits Everton's club shop; talks about getting serious about WrestleMania XXX
Fandango
Fandango, real name Curtis Hussey, looked every inch the Evertonian as he touched the club’s crest on the way down the players’ tunnel, and his eyes lit up when shown the shirts adorning the walls of the home side’s changing room – especially the kit of his compatriot Tim Howard.
The fascination with another world wasn’t all one way traffic – Snods knows far more about the likes of The Undertaker and The Bushwhackers than you might think – but Fandango was especially keen to ask the duo about Everton’s following game, the FA Cup clash with Arsenal.
There aren’t many parallels between sports entertainment and football – Jose Mourinho’s penchant for trash talking aside – but simply put, if the FA Cup Final is the showpiece occasion of the British sporting calendar, then the grandest stage of them all in grappling is undoubtedly WrestleMania.
The annual pay-per-view event is where the ballroom dancing, flamboyant character of Fandango made his debut last year, defeating the six-time world champion Chris Jericho in a shock upset.
And now he has his sights set on once again making history at the event WWE modestly coins ‘the showcase of the immortals’.
He said: “The highlight of my past year was WrestleMania. Not just WrestleMania, but the feud that Chris and I built going into WrestleMania, because there was a lot of naysayers.
“A lot of people initially when this character debuted, it was like a lightning rod, people were very cynical towards it. With any outlandish character you’re going to get a lot of negative reaction, but that’s the whole point of the character.
“There is no better feeling than to go out and prove people wrong.”
Working with Jericho was a dream come true for the former NXT winner.
“I was smitten because I grew up a huge Chris Jericho fan. To have someone come up to you and say ‘hey, you’re going to debut and work a programme with Chris Jericho’, a future hall of famer – one of the reasons why I got into professional wrestling was Chris Jericho because I looked up to him.
“It was an honour and I owe a lot to him for really helping to make the Fandango character.”
Fandango says he enjoyed the match – despite his nerves and a mistimed finish – especially the moment he hit his signature diving leg drop from the top turnbuckle in front of 80,000 fans.
“I’m so critical with all my matches, I always pick them apart. It was a good match, but we didn’t have a lot of time for the match with the show running long.
“It was pretty surreal to just stand up there and look out. It takes a couple of seconds for the fans, for the noise from the rafters to come down.
“A day like that just goes like that, next thing you know you’re back at the hotel.
“I was actually more nervous about remembering my dance routine on the stage than my actual match. It was a hell of a day.”
The night after the show, during an episode of WWE Raw, British fans who had stayed over in New Jersey began singing his theme song, ChaChaLaLa, and ‘Fandangoing’ – dancing – in their thousands.
“The UK fans were getting more rambunctious and loud and as I came out for my match with Kofi Kingston and Chris Jericho interfered, the UK fans started Fandangoing.
“We had a week off and there was a lot of Twitter interaction with fans of different football clubs and a lot of football, hockey and baseball teams started playing my music at their games.
“A few WWE fans over here in the UK were tweeting Everton asking them to play my music.
“Everton responded saying they would not be able to, so me being the aggressor that I am decided to tweet Everton a bit of friendly banter back and forth, and they decided to play my music. Since then we’ve been good friends!”